


you wear your mask (because she tells you to)

by alittlegloomy



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Blindfolds, Cunnilingus, F/F, The mortifying ordeal of being perceived, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlegloomy/pseuds/alittlegloomy
Summary: “I am going to test your trust, again.”“At this point, I didn’t think there was a time that you weren’t doing that, Nonagesimus.”---------Harrow gets an idea. What she thought would mortify her most would be speaking it out loud.Then, Gideon agreed.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 127





	you wear your mask (because she tells you to)

Harrow had absolutely no idea how she had gotten herself into this situation. 

Well, that was a half-truth. 

Okay, maybe a quarter-truth. 

When they’d made it back to their quarters that night, there was something... _different_ in the air. Something unnameable, but distinct. Electric. It was tangible. Tension that could be sliced through with a dull knife. 

Nimble fingers toyed with a loose thread in her pocket as her teeth worried at the inside of her cheek. Dark eyes darted around the room - looking at her bed, her closet door, the bookshelf. A thin layer of dust had built up on the wooden shelves, disturbed only in the places where she had picked up any tomes of interest. She was pointedly looking everywhere _but_ the person with her. She wasn’t searching for anything in particular, except for, perhaps, a reason to _not_ go through with this. The concept of the whole thing was still mortifying, the shame of it a wet, tarry ache, swirling deep in her chest.  
  
“...So.” Gideon broke the silence first, lifting a gloved hand to push hair off of her sweat-slicked brow. There were bits of her paint smeared in it, grey clinging to red. The contact transferred pigment onto her fingers, and when Gideon wiped it away on the side of her pant leg, it left greasy streaks behind on the cloth. Harrow glanced down to observe the action, the slightest bit of a sneer on her face at the lack of decorum. 

“So?” Harrow’s response was curt as ever, sharp. There was safety in monosyllabic replies, in avoiding any possible quaver of tone. Somehow, words cutting through air only further punctuated how shameful this whole thing was, and shame made her feel _nervous_. It made her a little sick to her stomach. She had half a mind to call the whole thing off, to send Gideon away. To pretend this whole sordid affair had never occurred. To lick her wounds, reassemble her pride, and carry on. They wouldn’t ever have to speak of it again.

When she spoke, Gideon looked down at her, but Harrow did not look back. Instead, she glanced away, removing her hands from her pockets and fidgeting once more, focusing very intently on yet another loose thread she’d just discovered - this time, on the sleeve of her robe.

That must not have been the correct response, because her cavalier merely sighed in reply and made a move to turn away, seemingly to begin making her way back to her own room. Whether she was going to her own room or not didn’t matter, though - ultimately, the issue was that she was _leaving_. In a burst of something quite unlike herself, Harrow’s hand darted out to grab for Gideon - a wordless request to keep her there, quiet desperation. She was so small as to be insignificant, all skin and bones - Gideon could shake her off, could pull away with no issue at all. They both knew it. And yet, she paused. She stayed. 

“Nav.” The voice came with a bit more of a tremor this time, one that she really didn’t have the capacity to feel embarrassment or shame about in the moment. The Reverend Daughter swallowed thickly around a lump that had, at some point, developed in her throat. It was her turn to sigh, then, “ _Griddle._ ” 

Gideon turned after a breath of a moment, once again offering her necromancer her full, undivided attention. She didn’t speak, as though for once in her life she didn’t think it was necessary. She just sat and stared, waiting out Harrow’s thought process. 

The thought process, though, didn’t seem to offer her much more in the way of additional words. She was distracted by Gideon’s expression, obscured by layers of paint and somehow still as readable as if she were as bare as the day she was born. Reading expressions came easily when you had a familiarity with one another, and whether she cared to admit it or not, she and Gideon knew each other well; that was bound to happen when you grew up side by side, no matter how much you had hated one another. The look on her cavalier’s face was patience tinged with curiosity, detectable only in the slight quirk of Gideon’s brow. It crinkled her paint, cracked it a little. There was an understanding to that look, to her eyes, and what might have been interpreted as a hint of devotion.

What killed her twice over, though, was that a degree of that look could only be described as _awe_ . It made Harrow’s chest ache. That look made it feel like her sternum was about to burst through her flesh, as though the pressure of her heart and her lungs pushing against her ribs was genuinely about to end her right then and there. It was too much, and again she felt that momentary instinct of flight, of _get the hell out of there_ , because seeing someone look at you as though you were the one that painted the sunrise every morning was _too much_. 

Flight turned to fight, and thought turned to action. She stepped forward, and shaking hands moved upwards, clutching at the front of Gideon’s robes. When they curled around black fabric, she gave a push, forcing her cavalier to move - well, not really, but Gideon humored her nonetheless. In a burst of confidence, of assertion of dominance, Harrow was crowding her space. Her fingers still gripped at the cloth, urging her cavalier back, and back, and back, until she’d pushed her up against the closest wall. 

Gideon’s eyes widened further with each step, brows raising, the distinct notion of _‘well, holy shit, this is impressive’_ plain on her face. She didn’t protest, though. Not at any of the steps forcing her backwards, not when she made contact with the wall, not at Harrow’s hands moving to her shoulders and tugging, urging her to sit down on the floor. She simply complied, demonstrating an unwavering obedience that prickled something up Harrow’s spine that she couldn’t quite name. 

Those stupid, bright, golden eyes blinked up at her as Harrow once again worked her inner cheek between her molars. To say that the necromancer was thankful for her paint would be an understatement - there was absolutely no way that her face wasn’t pink, not with how hot it felt. If Gideon caught onto that, it would be beyond mortifying. She’d never hear the end of it. 

Then again, if she’d been able to pick up on _Gideon’s_ expressions… Nevermind. She couldn’t think about that. 

Harrow stepped back, giving herself some space to shrug her robe off of her shoulders and her arms, allowing it to fall to a heap on the ground. The gloves were next, their removal hampered by trembling hands that shook for reasons she cared not to evaluate. Her fingers, free of cloth and desperate for something to do, then moved to work at the button and zip of her trousers. 

Gideon’s eyes were still on her, a detail that she tried - and failed - to ignore. They were just so _bright_ , such a stark contrast to her own. They made her feel as though her lungs were alight. She had to look away, had to focus on literally anything else in the room lest she catch fire right then and there. ‘Down’ was a perfectly suitable option, easily dismissed as her simply needing to look at what she was doing. The button was undone, the zipper pulled. When she opened her fingers to release the cloth, the trousers fell in one fluid motion, and she stepped out of the legs, standing in just her shirt and underwear. 

Once that was done, she lifted her own dark gaze from the pile of fabric that was her pants and looked back to Gideon. Once again, she was forced to acknowledge those eyes. Those eyes, usually glimmering gold, had gone molten. Rich, thick honey had turned to amber. Those eyes that had shifted in a way that was almost imperceptible, but still betrayed any attempted demonstrations of composure - not that Gideon tried. Those eyes that looked at her like she was… like she was some _dinner platter_ , for God’s sake! 

With a huff, she again considered putting a stop to all of this. That would serve her cavalier right, after all, for giving her that stupid look with those stupid eyes that regarded her as though she hung the stars in the sky. But… no. Despite whatever wishes the Reverend Daughter might have to the contrary, despite the continued low lurch of shame she felt when she thought about it, she _did_ want this. Instead of backing out, she pulled her lower lip between her teeth and glanced around the room, still not really looking for anything in particular, until - 

There. 

Her eyes settled on her closet, and she was suddenly the Harrowhark Nonagesimus she had always presented herself as. She walked with a purpose to cross the room, ignoring the small sound Gideon made as she did so, and slid open the closet door with enough force that the door _clunked_ loudly against the frame. She winced at the sound, jumpy from vulnerability, and hoped the flinch wasn’t obvious enough to be seen by her cavalier from across the room. Composure regained after just a fraction of a moment, Harrow didn’t waste time, setting to flipping through article after article of black cloth.

Originally when she’d looked at the closet and had gotten the idea, she had considered just ripping a strip off of an old nightshirt she knew she had. It was nearing threadbare status and was just about ready to be thrown out anyway. Why she’d even held onto it for as long as she had, she wasn’t sure - it certainly wasn’t sentimentality. That wasn’t her strongest suit, never had been. But when she had been pushing the varying shades of black aside, flipping through them out of a combination of simple curiosity, buying more time, and to see what other possible options there may be, a piece gave her pause. It was one of her veils. When she saw it, her mind blanked for a second, but she couldn’t help herself - she pulled the hanger from the closet and admired the way the fabric fell. It was nice. A dark-hued, sheer piece of cloth with lace accents that, when bunched or folded up, would probably be opaque enough for what she needed it for. It would be easy enough to get clean, too, were Gideon’s paint to get on it.

She felt herself flush when she realized she was considering it, assessing the sacrilege for a moment before she pulled the article off of the hanger. She was _actually_ considering it, wasn’t she? 

No - she was past considering. The _considering_ had ceased the moment she had removed it from the closet and examined the length, had worked to determine if it was long enough and dark enough for what she wanted or not, and had decided, _yes_. 

“Nav,” she’d begun, turning back around and closing the gap between herself and her cavalier, working the fabric in her hands to fold it in half, then in half again, and so on until she had a long, narrow strip of cloth held in her dainty fingers, “I am going to test your trust, again.” 

That had earned her an exasperated sigh from the other woman. “At this point, I didn’t think there was a time that you _weren’t_ doing that, Nonagesimus.” 

Harrow’s sharp features twisted, a frown accentuating furrowed brows. A thousand different possible responses whirled through her head in mere seconds, none of them sufficient. “Just… lean forward, a little.” 

Thankfully, Gideon’s knack for obedience seemed to outweigh her sass, because she did just that. She leaned in and tilted her head up for Harrow as the necromancer’s fingers found their way to her jaw, curling under her chin. There was a moment of eye contact, and then a split second of Harrow’s heart suddenly making an appearance in her throat. Damn those _eyes_. She shook her head to banish the fog rolling into her mind as she pulled away, taking the makeshift blindfold back up in both hands once again. Said hands were still twitchy, and she curled them into fists once, twice, steeling herself. Finally, Harrow placed the cloth over Gideon’s eyes and moved to secure it in a firm knot around the back of her head. 

Gideon, to her credit, could have said a lot of things. She could have made a comment about it being kinky, surprising, about how she didn’t take Harrow to be that sort of gal. Instead, what she managed, low enough so that Harrow only _barely_ heard it, was a breathy “Holy shit,” that made Harrow warm in unspeakable places. 

That taken care of, the necromancer was finally able to take a step back, suddenly so much more at peace with the current situation without the visible presence of those eyes on her; they could somehow make her feel like she was being torn apart without ever being touched at all. Her thumbs dipped into the waistband of her underwear and she pulled them down, not bothering with any attempt at sensuality given the fact that her bedpartner (wallpartner?) couldn’t see her, anyway. Her lips pursed as she did so, needing to face the fact that the situation at hand had already managed to get her _embarrassingly_ wet. She could see it, glistening in the dark fabric of her underwear, which was quickly crumpled up and tossed in the general direction of her laundry hamper. 

Dipping a hand down between her legs, an experimental swipe of two fingers between her folds, Harrow grimaced a bit when she realized _exactly_ how wet she was. And sensitive, too - the brief brush of her fingertips against her clit had been enough to cause her breath to catch in her throat. She was not at all unaware of the way Gideon had perked up at the sound. 

Harrow stepped forward once more, pulse a dull roar in her ears, and reached forward to push a hand through the thick tufts of red hair atop her cavalier’s head. The aforementioned redhead gasped quietly, tensing momentarily before melting into the contact. Harrow was pleased, taking in the scene before her as she stepped to position her feet on either side of Gideon’s legs. She had done the mental math _perfectly_ . Like this, seated firmly on her ass, Gideon was at _just_ the right height. 

She knew this because, with a small push of her hips forward, she found contact with Gideon’s mouth. It took only a second before her cavalier got with the program and licked her up greedily, tongue carving into her and forcing a sharp sound to pull out of the necromancer’s throat. Hurriedly, mortified at the noise, she moved the hand that had been fisted in Gideon’s hair to clasp over her mouth. 

Ask Harrow, and she would have guessed Gideon had done this before. The woman’s mouth was insistent, eager, licking and sucking at her as though Harrow was one of those desserts she’d been so irritatingly fond of. It was _sinful_. She felt filthy, and perfect. Like she was too cold and too hot all at once. Like she was on fire. 

_“Gmmdle-”_ Harrow muffled a cry into her palm as Gideon worked at her, collapsing against the surface of the wall with her forehead and her free arm for support, fingernails that had been gnawed down short scraping fruitlessly at the paint. She hoped with every little ounce of her that the word had been sufficiently obscured against her flesh, but she could feel the way her cavalier smiled against her and urged herself forward with a reinvigorated interest, and knew that hope was for naught. 

Large hands had found their way to rest on the back of Harrow’s thighs, high enough to tease at dangerous but not _quite_ high enough to warrant a slap away. Still, she made a note to keep an eye on that, in case her cavalier decided to get, well, handsy. Because obviously, getting handsy when you had your face between someone’s legs was patently _not_ allowed. 

That mental note was quickly crumpled up and tossed in the mental bin when the redhead’s tongue pushed devilishly against her clit. Her legs trembled at the contact, threatening to give way - yet another detail that her _oh_ so variably perceptive companion seemed to pick up on. Those hands moved to support her instead, cupping at the sensitive skin on her upper thighs, the spot where it was difficult to tell, really, if you were touching leg or touching ass. She was sensitive, almost ticklish there, and the contact alone made her whimper, made her rock her hips forward, grinding against Gideon’s mouth, her tongue, her lips. 

A shockwave tore through her as something between her thighs vibrated, rippling up her pelvis, her spine, only to shoot right back down to settle deep in her hips. It was only a moment before she realized that Gideon had… had moaned? Hummed? She couldn’t be certain, but Lord Undying, if she wasn’t rapidly finding herself addicted to the sensation. 

“I’m-“ Harrow began to say through her fingers, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate what _exactly_ she was. It was very rapidly getting to be too much. She found herself clenching around emptiness, bucking her hips for more, more, more. Teeth found their way to dig into the thin skin of her wrist, using the motion to help keep her quiet and grounded. She was distantly aware of the sounds of the two of them together, aware of her toes curling against the thin pile of the carpet, aware of the absence of one of those hands against her - her leg? Her ass? She still couldn’t tell, didn’t _care_ to tell. 

Finally, she felt fingers pressing up against her cunt. It was a strange thing, thinking ‘finally’ when she really hadn’t considered that she’d even wanted this until right that very moment. One pushed inside first, burying all the way to the base knuckle. A sound escaped her at that, breathed out quietly through her nose as she tried to roll her hips down to it - it was good, but not _quite_ enough by itself. Gideon gave an experimental curl, and while she definitely liked it, definitely made another tiny little noise, she wanted more. 

Thankfully, her cavalier seemed to be on a roll with this perception thing. When the digit was removed - and she absolutely _did not_ huff a noise in dispute at the loss - another soon joined it, pressing into her. The blissful stretch made her suddenly hyper-aware of how much thicker Gideon’s fingers were than her own. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was there, and damn it if it was absolute _heaven_. 

She eventually managed a _“Gid-eon,_ ” the word catching in her throat, feeling absolutely wretched on her tongue. It was filthy, so antithetical to everything she’d ever known… and yet. 

And yet. 

Her hips rocked, an awkward, stuttering rhythm at first, before she settled into a pace that worked. This was now, decidedly, too much. _Way_ too much. Gideon curled her fingers as she pushed and pulled, grinding the pads of her fingertips against the front of Harrow’s walls in a ridiculously cruel way that had her whimpering quickly, flush with embarrassment. 

Was the embarrassment due to the _rate_ that the noises had started, or the fact that they were there at all?

Eventually, the hand that had been scratching at the wall dropped to grasp at Gideon’s hair, needing support. She was grabbing hard, she could tell, but Gideon either couldn’t tell much of a difference or just didn’t care. She kept up her pace and was, perhaps, even being _encouraged_ by the tugging at her scalp. Without the hand to muffle them, Harrow’s sounds bounced off of the wall, curled up between them, infiltrated their space. She could feel a flush on her face, something about hearing herself in such a state even more embarrassing than the act itself. 

There was a coiling, burning sensation twisting its way into reality low in her gut. It was like she was winding, a tight wire curling around Gideon’s fingers, around her tongue. She nearly stopped it right there, nearly grabbed her cavalier’s hand and pulled away, completely and entirely overwhelmed with the feeling of it. It was like she was going to die, honestly, at least a little bit, and she could feel her thighs trembling from the effort of trying to stay upright. Too much, too much, it was _way_ too much - 

When she came, she did so with a cry, leaning forward and digging her teeth into the papery skin at her wrist, right over her carpals. Every bit of her was a shuddering mess - her fingers, her legs, her frail little ribcage stuttering with every breath she attempted as she crested into and came down from her high. 

After a few moments, she was able to blearily blink her eyes open once again - she’d had them screwed so tightly shut, it seemed, that she’d managed to lose her vision temporarily. Or was that just something that happened with… with this? She really had no reference by which to know. When she finally got her wits about her once more, she realized that Gideon’s hands had moved from a teasing pressure to supporting her, Harrow having apparently given up on standing of her own volition at some point in favor of sitting atop her cavalier’s shoulders. 

She untangled her fingers from Gideon’s hair, and untangled her body from Gideon’s shortly thereafter. When she tried to put her feet down, tried to rest her weight on her own diminutive musculature, she was embarrassed to find that she simply _couldn’t_. If she had been slower, she very well may have crumpled to the ground, but she had the sense of mind to turn herself around and press her back against the wall, standing instead beside where Gideon was seated. 

Where Gideon was seated, she noted, _obediently_ . Still blindfolded. Clearly worked up, though, based on how red her cheeks were. Paint had smeared off of her face, and Harrow glanced down to find the streaky remnants on her thighs. The realization that she _really liked that_ was a strange one. Flicking her tongue out to wet lips that she hadn’t realized were dry, Harrow regarded Gideon in such a state with a curious assessment. She looked…nice, like this. With her hair tousled up, with a faint blush adorning that face, or at least what she could see of it through the smudged grey. With the evidence of what she had just done glistening on her lips, on her chin. The necromancer found herself needing to glance away when she caught Gideon licking her lips, as though in response. 

“You may take your leave,” she managed after a moment, thankful that she’d seemed to judge her own limits correctly, and that her voice _hadn’t_ come out as a squeak. _That_ , she didn’t think she’d be able to bear. “Whenever you find yourself ready.” 

There was a sound of protest that fell on ignoring ears. Harrow had already stepped away, gathering the piles of fabric off of the ground that were her trousers and robe, and escaped from her room, out into the Ninth quarters. It was a blessing that Canaan House had seen fit to sequester each house to their own private abodes, if only so she didn’t need to try to scramble to get dressed and do a veritable ‘walk of shame’ to get herself cleaned up. Still, there was something mortifying about walking around your ‘home’ half-naked. 

When they saw one another, later, they didn’t speak of it. They hardly even looked at each other, though that was far more Harrow’s fault than Gideon’s. It was hard to look at someone when the mere sight of them caused your breath to hitch in your throat, and a warmth to begin pooling between your legs. 

How utterly _shameful_. 

She’d be lying, though, if she tried to say that she didn’t think about it again, later that night when she was under her covers with her hand between her thighs. 

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to my beta readers dilapidatedcorvid and infernalandmortal for trudging through this nonsense as much as you two did and for all of the help!!! literally can't say thank you enough to you guys, lmfao. 
> 
> also, huge thanks to corvidlesbian for everything always because I'm gay, but especially for catching my 72 word sentence when this wasn't even in First Draft status. saved my ass and really made me take a step back and think about how i wrote, babe, appreciate you. this is also basically for you, so.
> 
> and thanks to you for reading! hope you enjoyed it!!


End file.
